Heraclea

Making plans for the cashiering of an /electric blaster. The character has both full sets of Blaster ATOs. Was considering passing them along to a replacement blaster, when it dawned on me: those things are all catalyzed and therefore level 50 only. They won't be available to the replacement character for some time. I don't suppose that boosting them would remove them from the Superior category or would it? Might not make them slottable early in any case. I would strongly prefer to avoid the workaround of putting them on the AH, paying AH fees, and buying uncatalyzed replacements with the proceeds. I suspect that the price of blaster specific enhancements will be tanking soon, and at any rate I do not trust inf to retain its value, and the AH is subject to a lot of randomness and manipulation.

I would GREATLY appreciate it if a setting could be added that locked power trays in place and disabled tray swapping. Many is the time that I thought I was attacking, only to discover that I was clicking toggles on and off. I've learned to bind anything else to the - key. The little arrows by the 1 and 0 powers in the trays are also treacherous and often being clicked by mistake.

Is there an reason why the power won't work in Ouroboros? Or, for that matter, why there isn't a permanent fixed base portal in Ouroboros? Having one there would be very beneficial, especially for people who use Ouroboros as a launch pad for trials and the like.

I would suggest running a Penny Yin on Brainstorm sometime soon with Titan Weapon characters. I must admit that I more or less abandoned my TW scrapper after the drums began beating to nerf the set. I will admit that I was pleasantly surprised working the Roman wall with the transferred character on test. But that's level 50 content, and not difficult level 50 content. The smoother feel of the attacks was more noticeable to me than any loss of damage. Then again I never was that into soloing pylons to perfect a rotation; as I said, I didn't like the feel or jerky rhythms of TW as it is now. Penny Yin was where I decided to give up on the character; here's where its existing disadvantages became glaring, when limited to under 25 powers. You'd cue up attacks and land them on mobs that are already dead. I'd recruit a couple testing blasters to see if this is how it still works. I'd really like to know whether this fixes any of that.

Joan Baez - The Unquiet Grave

On my electric/electric blaster, I've always used Force of Thunder in connection with Stealth; my basic method with the character is to enter the center of the spawn unnoticed, stun them with Force of Thunder, drain them with Power Sink, and then get out of there and nuke them, picking off the survivors as needed. With Dynamo this fails immediately and gets me killed. On test my Dynamo is uselessly slotted now with Sudden Accelerations, which I added specifically for the -KB. I did not take Lightning Field, did not want or need it. This change breaks the cottage rule, makes stealth unworkable on /Electric blasters, and messes with existing builds badly. It would probably be better for the character to dump the sustain power entirely, build for recovery and regen the old fashioned way, and spec into the diminished version of Lightning Clap. It is unlikely that I will spend the inf and merits to do that to the broken character; likelier that the blaster will be simply cashiered.

My stealthy electric/electric blaster needs a taunt aura like she needs a hole in the head. Currently it is an AoE attack, but one that needs to be activated voluntarily, not a taunt aura that aggroes every mob she tries to get past. I tested 'Dynamo' and confirmed my worst fears. Now her sustain power aggroes everything she gets in range of. If this goes live the character will be stripped and retired. This change needs to be walked back. --------- EDIT: And also, when I copied my TB electric/electric blaster to Brainstorm, it appears that my Sudden Acceleration set, including the KB to KD IO, are now sitting uselessly in 'Dynamo', where they do diddly squat. This would appear to break the 'kitchen rule'. Force of Thunder is now apparently something I don't have.

AFAIK it's always been possible to get the Midnighter badge at level 1 by a trip to Night Ward, via Ouro or the AP Tunnel swirly, or IIRC Echo Galaxy. Which raises another issue, actually. A trip to Echo: Galaxy City was and AFAIK still is needed to get the reading badge for the Atlas Medallion, and there were many exploration badges that are accessible nowhere else. This makes Echo: Galaxy even more inconvenient to access, which seems another pointless nuisance. ____________ EDIT: This may be a bug. On my test base, Mercy Island and the other redside zones are showing up as available to heroes. Tried to go there on a hero; got kicked out as expected. When I was, I was kicked into Atlas Park, but nowhere near the base portal. Rather, I was sent to a place a few yards from the current AP portal destination, but at the bottom of the hill rather than the top.

What you're looking for is called a 'tanker'. In itself, tanking is a support function. Some do it more obviously than others; Ice and Dark armors have substantial control abilities, while Bio and Radiation have valuable debuffs and (in Rad's case) team heals. I play tankers as support; I am not eager to rush ahead to the next spawn if that's going to leave bosses in the backfield. Like a healer, my job is to see the whole team safely through, or at least those who want my protection.

Cimerora is accessible from level 1 as a result of this?

I would also point out that requiring the exploration accolades to use the power benefits stealthies over taunties; they generally can go where they please without spooking the herd. And getting, say, the Hollows accolade is most useful for a character within level for Hollows content. Not getting aggro is going to make a big difference here. To a lesser but still significant effect, it privileges fliers over runners and jumpers. Now, this evening I just got a character to level 47 on an ITF. Time to get serious about the build. Time to pop into base to see what's there and what might be needed. Easily done now. I need a Steadfast +DEF enhancement. I do have the merits to get one, but am missing one piece of lowbie salvage. Time to pop back to Cimerora and invoke the trader, then back to base to craft it. All of these cooldowns and restrictions are going to make stuff like this much more tedious. Best thing to have done, IMO, would be to leave well enough alone. Still seems the best option IMO.

I have created a (rudimentary) public SG base on Brainstorm Test for such as can't be bothered, Code is NEWS-90; name of the SG is 'and the Action News Team'. I do think that if these powers are going to be changed, they ought to be made to work a bit differently. They need first to be uninterruptible, the problem that makes Mission Transporter unusable in areas with any NPC traffic. The new animations do not give that impression. I also think that Cimerora needs to be brought within the ambit of the system, at least to the point of having a base portal in Cimerora. Losing the passcode command will weigh heavier on those of us who play a lot in Cimerora than on others. There probably ought to be a SG portal in The Hive and The Abyss as well. I am uncertain what counts as an 'unlockable' zone. I logged into a character with several exploration accolades; her options from the new LRT power were Hollows and Striga. She also has accolades for Eden and the Hive, I believe.

On TB, the Amazon Army has a loose SG uniform. No costume pieces are mandatory, but they're based on Heraclea's colors: red and gold above, blue and white below.

Brian Jonestown Massacre - She Made Me

I'd have to see your build first. For an end-bound character, job one is having the Panacea (level 7), Miracle (level 17), and Numina's (level 27) IOs frankenslotted in Health, and the Performance Shifter proc in Stamina. These are relatively affordable, in that with patience you should be able to get them all for under 8 million. These all have the advantage that they work throughout the game, while incarnate abilities are only available 45+.

Or losing them to need/greed rolls. Not having crap like that is one of the major reasons why the community here is so much better than elsewhere. Games I gave up quickly have drama drivers like - the MMO trinity (if you're a tank or healer you're indispensable and you know it); - repair costs (i.e. you are expected to know the fight mechanics before you even start); - complex choreography and catherding (ditto); - public loot with raid leaders or chance mechanisms deciding who gets (this one should be obvious); - 'soulbound' and other forms of non-transferability of game rewards; - strongly integrated and progression related PvP (inevitably discriminates against non-stealth melee, who can be worn down or CCed by people they can't touch). All of these misfeatures increase drama and tension in the player base for reasons that should be fairly obvious. Their absence here is this game's glory. They are also why introducing choreography in the form of floor patches you must move out of is a bad idea here. That sort of thing just doesn't work in a game where powers have been re-balanced by un-abortable animation times. It never should have been added; if it's possible, it ought to be removed.

Claudio Monteverdi - I bei legami

Black Oak Arkansas - Lord Have Mercy On My Soul

Cab Calloway - St James Infirmary

Mace is probably more basic than Axe, and that's where the hammer is. Mace/Electric sounds pretty good, actually.

I made a Rad/Spines to serve as a moneymaker for my new TB supergroup. This is also a very satisfying combo with no real holes and high resists to all but Cold, and quite adequate damage.

The main advantage of Savage -- the endurance discount -- is lost on either Bio or WP, neither of which really need it. I'd suggest Savage/Dark or Savage/Invuln. I have a Dark/Savage tanker and that combo convinced me that Dark Armor was not a waste of time and effort. Savage/Rad also has possibilities.

The only support set I can really get my head around is Poison, this mostly because most of the powers are aimed at enemies rather than teammates, and not having to worry about the durability of your 'anchor' makes it much more fun to play. I have a poison/dark defender at 50, also a plants/poison controller. Venomous Gas is underwhelming, one of the few Poison powers I might suggest is skip-worthy. It basically works as a taunt aura. Most of the time you will be avoiding melee on such a character, so it's rather hard to say how valuable its debuff is. Most of the time what it does is get you killed, where you forget to turn it off and it spoils your stealth. I do have Time on a Beast/Time MM, but I don't have a whole lot of time racked up on the character.

And make it uninterruptible, and make its animation less than half a second. For that matter, the cooldowns on Mission Transport and Assemble the Team are also excessive and should be recast after the model of Ouroboros Portal. I use enterbasefrompasscode quite often, myself. It's the best way to duck into a base for crafting from places like Cimerora or Ouroboros. It also lets you access the quick in-base logout from day job badge locations, which is helpful when swapping characters. I would strongly prefer that any substitute preserve all of these functions, which do not seem like exploits and increase in-game QOL.

Alex Harvey - Roman Wall Blues